A Life Worth Living (16 page)

Gaby swallowed hard, trying to maintain her composure. “What a coincidence,” she said as Saar approached her.

Saar
looked at her quizzically.

“You know, meeting up like this again,” Gaby added.

Saar shrugged. “It’s a small country.” Gaby narrowed her eyes and he added, “My parents live here. I’m home for
regilah
, for vacation.” He pulled up a chair to sit by the table. Chen had one arm around Shira and was holding her hand in the other one. He was speaking to her in soft, urgent tones, and Shira was looking away. “On second thought, let’s give them some privacy.” Saar motioned to another table.

Gaby bit her lip and looked at Shira. “Fine,” she said and sat down with
Saar.

“What’s happening?”
Saar asked.

You mean since we hooked up and I never heard from you again, Gaby thought. “Nothing,” she said.

“Not nothing. You’re working with Shira?”

“Yeah, on the kibbutz.”

“
Walla
. You also spend the whole day milking cows?” Saar pantomimed milking.

Gaby laughed in spite of herself. “No, I could never do that. I work in the
gan
.”

“So you rock babies the whole day.”
Saar made the motions of soothing a baby.

“Are you just gonna mime everything I say?”

“What’s mime?”

“Miming is making motions like to show you’re milking a baby and rocking a cow.”

Saar leaned back and laughed uproariously, slapping his hands together. Gaby looked at him in bewilderment until she realized what she had said. “Whatever, you know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t. I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to milk a baby or to rock a cow. Even in this country.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Saar
smiled at her. “You left your necklace with me the other time.”

Gaby scowled, all humor leaving her face. “So why didn’t you call to tell me I left it behind?”

“Come on. Are you mad about that? That I didn’t call you?” he said, getting right to the point.

“Well, maybe.”

“Did you think I was going to call you?”

“No, but you know… it would have been nice after… you know…”

“You know, you say you know a lot.” Saar pulled the sleeve of her jacket, trying to get her to look at him. “Come on. Relax. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. I didn’t mean to do that. But why are you making something out of nothing? We had fun together, and that was the point, right? To help you get over that boyfriend?”

Gaby sighed, feeling defeated.

“You know I’m right,” Saar insisted gently.

“Fine,” Gaby said. “You’re right, I’m wrong and stupid.”

“You’re not stupid. All girls do this. I can’t understand it. They make castles out of…” He motioned with his hands. “How do you say it?”

“Castles out of cards?”

“Cards? I think I mean air,” Saar said, thinking.

“Maybe sand?” Gaby tried.

“You’re losing your English.”

“My English is just fine. Anyway, I have a new boyfriend now.”

“Always with a boyfriend,” Saar smirked.

Did he think she wasn’t capable of having a real boyfriend? She remembered how she confessed that Benny had de-friended her on Facebook, and her cheeks burned in shame. “No, this is a new one.”

“A new one!” he said brightly.

Gaby shrugged off
Saar’s sarcasm, thinking about Hillel’s sweet face. “He’s nice.”

“I’m sure he is. I love nice boys.”
Saar leaned across the table. “You know what they say about nice boys?”

“What?” Gaby asked.

Saar just winked at her and then jumped up from his seat. He walked over to the karaoke machine, where a cute girl had just finished her recital of a Celine Dion song. He whispered something to her, and she giggled.

A minute later, the first familiar beats of
What Makes You Beautiful
by One Direction started playing through the speakers. Saar took the microphone off the stand and started singing with surprising gusto and skill. He walked around the cordoned-off area of the open bar, and in minutes had the whole place singing with him. Soon, everyone was standing up and shaking their bodies to the beat as they sang
nana nana nana
.

Gaby stared at him, her mouth gaping open in shock, unable to move, even as Shira and Chen stood up to join the festivities.
Saar made his way around the crowd and stood in front of her, singing in an impossibly attractive baritone, “…that’s what makes you beautiful…”

Gaby, simultaneously mystified and charmed, sucked in her cheeks to keep herself from grinning like an idiot, trying to pretend she could be indifferent in the face of such an aggressive display of flattery. When the song was done, the crowd clapped and cheered, with Shira and Chen the loudest of them all.

Saar waved to his fans and returned the mike to the stand. An appreciative patron handed him a beer, and he gulped it, handing the glass back to the bartender. He ordered two more, and brought them over to Gaby’s table.

Gaby took a glass and sipped. “That was really something.”

“Thanks,” Saar said with mock modesty.

“I didn’t know you knew how to do that.”

“I can do a lot of things you don’t know about.”

“Very funny,” Gaby said, but she was smiling. It was hard not to forgive him when he was trying so hard. Anyway, it’s not like he was wrong. She was making something out of nothing. If she could move on, maybe they would be friends. It would be nice to have more friends.

Saar finished his second glass and looked over at Shira and Chen. The communal singing seemed to have relaxed Shira as well, and she was leaning her head against Chen’s shoulder, their fingers intertwined on the table.

“It’s your turn now,”
Saar said.

“No way, not in a million years.”

“Okay, so let’s just stare at those two fools making up or breaking up or doing both at the same time.”

“I know, it’s so ridiculous.”

“Want to walk around a little bit?”

Gaby hesitated, knowing it wouldn’t be a good idea to be alone with
Saar, even if they were friends. But what would be the harm in letting Shira work out her issues with Chen in privacy? “Okay, just for a little bit,” Gaby said. They said their goodbyes to Chen and Shira, promising to meet up later.

Gaby walked next to
Saar, out of the bar into the street. He was wearing worn jeans and a blue t-shirt that looked at least ten years old and showcased his lean physique perfectly. Then, catching herself checking him out, she quickly looked away.

Old posters were plastered on the side of buildings with pictures of Gilad Shalit, the soldier who had been captured by Hamas years earlier and hadn’t been heard from since. As she walked past the posters, Gilad’s eyes seemed to follow, beseeching her. Chills ran down her spine, and she jumped involuntarily.

Saar put his hand on her back. “Are you cold?” he asked.

“No, it’s just those pictures of Gilad are freaking me out a little.”

“That’s the point.”

Gaby looked at
Saar pensively. “What would you do if you got captured?”

“Blow myself up in millions of pieces so they can’t capture me or my body,”
Saar said without hesitation.

“You’re joking. You wouldn’t actually kill yourself. You’re just saying that.”

Saar shook his head. “I mean it. I’m a soldier. I’ve agreed to give up my life for Israel if that’s what I need to do. Whenever a soldier is captured, or even just his body, there’s all these demonstrations, and the media attention,” Saar waved at the walls of posters, “and the parents set up tents in front of the Prime Minister’s house and have these month-long protests, and then the government caves in, because how can you tell a mother you won’t make every effort to bring back her son, and they make the craziest deal under all this pressure, releasing hundreds of prisoners for one dead body. It just encourages the terrorists.”

“Well, what do your parents think? Are they also willing to let you sacrifice yourself just like that?”

“That’s why I’m gonna blow myself up as soon as I see the keffiyehs surrounding me. That way, I’ll take some of them down with me and my parents won’t have to struggle to decide what to do.”

“You might have a point.” Gaby thought for a minute. “But how would they identify you if you blow yourself up?”

“You see my
diskiyot
?” Saar pulled out his dog tags from underneath his t-shirt. “I have another pair that I put in my boots when I’m on duty. Also, when I first signed up, I gave a blood sample; they took pictures of my teeth…”

“You mean dental records?”

“Yeah, dental records. So in case there’s no body, because my blood and bones and my brain pieces are dripping into the ground, they’ll have all that other proof for identification.”

Gaby jerked back, speechless.

Saar put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a one-armed hug. “
Yihiyeh b’seder
. Nobody’s dying. Everything is fine.” Then he added, “I mean, nobody is dying right now. But probably sometime soon.”

Gaby made a face at him and pushed him away. “Shut up! You are such an idiot.”

“Girls keep telling me that. I wonder why.” He stopped walking. “Hey, you want to go check that out?”

Gaby looked to where
Saar pointed to an unidentified doorway. “What is that?”

“It’s a club. You know…”
Saar waved his hands above his head wildly.

How could she resist such charm? He was being so open, and they were having a good conversation. He wasn’t even flirting with her. Didn’t friends go together to clubs all the time? “If you promise to dance like that, I’d love to watch.”

“
Sababa
,” Saar said and walked up to the black-painted entrance, where two big Russian men stood outside.

“
Saar,” Gaby started.

“What?”

“You’ll behave, right?”

“Me? Always.”
Saar paid the cover fee and they put out their hands to be stamped.

They walked through the dark, noisy club, Gaby moving closer to
Saar so as not to lose him. Saar turned slightly and grabbed her hand, pulling her into a larger room. Lanterns mounted onto the earthen walls gave off the only light in the room full of Israelis jumping up and down to booming trance music.

Saar
, moving his head in time to the music, mouthed loudly to Gaby, “Want a drink?”

She nodded her consent and he left her alone to get them drinks. Gaby edged back until she was against the wall, feeling uncomfortable with this mass of humanity wildly dancing with each other in every pairing possible; boys dancing with girls, boys bump-dancing into other boys, girls gyrating with their friends.

Saar came back with two iced drinks, and Gaby gratefully drank hers quickly without bothering to ask what was in it.

“So what do you think?”
Saar asked, leaning in close so he could yell in her ear.

“It’s good, thanks.”

“No, what do you think of the place?”

“It’s okay,” Gaby said, happy that
Saar cared what she thought.

“You’re not really feeling it,” he said, more stating than asking.

“I’m just not into this kind of music. It’s cool, though,” she said, wanting to seem as chilled as Saar.

“I’m gonna fix that,”
Saar said. “That outfit is too hot to waste standing against a wall.” He ran a hand around her waist quickly.

Gaby bit her lip against her smile, and
Saar winked at her. She watched him elbow his way through the crowd and speak to the DJ, an Ethiopian who had a startling similar appearance to Idan Raichel.

A minute later, he joined her with a smug smile on his face.

“What?” Gaby said, smiling in return, although a little confused at what he had accomplished.

Saar
took her hands and turned her in a circle. The music stopped, and then started again, and
I Love It
by Icona Pop filled the room.

“Woo-hoo,” whooped Gaby. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

She leaned her head back and let Saar twirl her in a circle. When she paused for breath, she said into his ear, “I can’t believe you got the DJ to play this song! I really do love it.”

He laughed, and keeping his hands on her waist, he pulled her close to him and moved his hips against hers. “I love it too,” he said.

Gaby grinned and followed his lead. It’s okay, she thought. We’re just dancing like everyone else here. It’s no big deal.

The DJ segued to the raspy sounds of Nickelback, and Gaby squealed her approval.